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Anyone play PDX's new release of Stellaris yet?
The way they use "Energy Points" makes a fantastic example of successfully doing what several players here have been suggesting for a while to do with currently near-useless "Faction Points." That is; re-name them something like Resource Points and use them as a power reserve that increases slowly over time, at faster rates and with a greater maximum capacity with more systems, more planets, and more stations claimed, and begins to significantly (not fast, not slow, just... significantly and relevantly) deplete when a large fleet is deployed away from stations capable of supplying them. Something that abstractly represents having the infrastructure and logistic capability to support deployment of fleets and ships over time and space.
I recommend councilors/devs either buy or download a free test copy of this game to see how it operates if the concept is not clear.
The potential function for Starmade should be apparent, with the additional strategic and tactical functionality the game is developing. It balances use of power with requirements for infrastructure (and infrastructure must be built, maintained, defended). It is a convenient and effective alternative to micro-managing fuel as a way to regulate players' ability to titan-troll or oppress others without a real investment in infrastructure which in turn leaves them vulnerable to counter-attack and allows others the opportunity to materially impede their ability to deploy the necessary force for trolling or massive invasions/occupations/dropping cube-naught drones to camp peoples' HBs.
It would be nice to see something like this in Starmade multi-player. Aggressive players seeking to deploy large fleets and titans against enemies would need to not only acquire the materials and/or credits to build and do the work of designing or filling blueprints, but would also need to claim many planets and build many stations to create a good Resource Point income. This infrastructure becomes the balance because it costs to build, it costs to defend, and it can be destroyed. In fact if everything but a player's HB were destroyed, they'd be forced to play very carefully for a while, using only current reserve they'd already built up, along with whatever their HB produces and not operate outside of their HB system except in a well-though-out manner or using smaller ships that didn't massively drain their RP/FP.
The easiest way to implement this requires no new blocks or anything. FP/RP income would need to be pegged to faction-owned stations (including HB) and planets, a certain amount of income per tick. We've seen on the late Elwyn Infinity server that this can work and inspires a lot of competition, war, and intrigue even when the only value of FP is winning first place in a server contest. After that, peg FP/RP expenditure to any faction-owned (or faction member owned) ship operating outside of a system with a claimed planet or station in it. This could be a per ship or per mass expense, but I believe a 1RP/1Billion power spent would be better. Of course the large numbers themselves may then become a problem for this framework, I don't know.
Better, but more laborious to develop would be a system of refineries, farms or generators that had to be placed on planets or station entities for them to generate FP/RP at all. That could be a 2nd-tier implementation though.
Obviously many have objected that such a system might be crippling, but of course that's an issue of balance and there's no need for baseline income or baseline + HB to be insufficient for players to mine, explore and trade in small, adequate vessels. The checking effect should only really start to become a problem for players/factions holding no infrastructure when their out of system energy expenditure becomes very high, like what one would expect to see when flying a titan around or a large fleet.
Obviously this general suggestion has been discussed at length before:
Here | Here | Here |
I'm just interested in pointing out how Stellaris accomplishes exactly this dynamic in a pretty effective way with their Energy system for those who don't see how this would work in a flexible, non-crippling way.
The way they use "Energy Points" makes a fantastic example of successfully doing what several players here have been suggesting for a while to do with currently near-useless "Faction Points." That is; re-name them something like Resource Points and use them as a power reserve that increases slowly over time, at faster rates and with a greater maximum capacity with more systems, more planets, and more stations claimed, and begins to significantly (not fast, not slow, just... significantly and relevantly) deplete when a large fleet is deployed away from stations capable of supplying them. Something that abstractly represents having the infrastructure and logistic capability to support deployment of fleets and ships over time and space.
I recommend councilors/devs either buy or download a free test copy of this game to see how it operates if the concept is not clear.
The potential function for Starmade should be apparent, with the additional strategic and tactical functionality the game is developing. It balances use of power with requirements for infrastructure (and infrastructure must be built, maintained, defended). It is a convenient and effective alternative to micro-managing fuel as a way to regulate players' ability to titan-troll or oppress others without a real investment in infrastructure which in turn leaves them vulnerable to counter-attack and allows others the opportunity to materially impede their ability to deploy the necessary force for trolling or massive invasions/occupations/dropping cube-naught drones to camp peoples' HBs.
It would be nice to see something like this in Starmade multi-player. Aggressive players seeking to deploy large fleets and titans against enemies would need to not only acquire the materials and/or credits to build and do the work of designing or filling blueprints, but would also need to claim many planets and build many stations to create a good Resource Point income. This infrastructure becomes the balance because it costs to build, it costs to defend, and it can be destroyed. In fact if everything but a player's HB were destroyed, they'd be forced to play very carefully for a while, using only current reserve they'd already built up, along with whatever their HB produces and not operate outside of their HB system except in a well-though-out manner or using smaller ships that didn't massively drain their RP/FP.
The easiest way to implement this requires no new blocks or anything. FP/RP income would need to be pegged to faction-owned stations (including HB) and planets, a certain amount of income per tick. We've seen on the late Elwyn Infinity server that this can work and inspires a lot of competition, war, and intrigue even when the only value of FP is winning first place in a server contest. After that, peg FP/RP expenditure to any faction-owned (or faction member owned) ship operating outside of a system with a claimed planet or station in it. This could be a per ship or per mass expense, but I believe a 1RP/1Billion power spent would be better. Of course the large numbers themselves may then become a problem for this framework, I don't know.
Better, but more laborious to develop would be a system of refineries, farms or generators that had to be placed on planets or station entities for them to generate FP/RP at all. That could be a 2nd-tier implementation though.
Obviously many have objected that such a system might be crippling, but of course that's an issue of balance and there's no need for baseline income or baseline + HB to be insufficient for players to mine, explore and trade in small, adequate vessels. The checking effect should only really start to become a problem for players/factions holding no infrastructure when their out of system energy expenditure becomes very high, like what one would expect to see when flying a titan around or a large fleet.
Obviously this general suggestion has been discussed at length before:
Here | Here | Here |
I'm just interested in pointing out how Stellaris accomplishes exactly this dynamic in a pretty effective way with their Energy system for those who don't see how this would work in a flexible, non-crippling way.
